In the "Mountbatten Plan" that granted independent status to British India, the "well-meaning" British divided the country into two countries, India and Pakistan, purely on the basis of religion.

Britain once ruled South Asia for nearly 2 centuries. After World War II, Britain withdrew from South Asia. In the "Mountbatten Plan" that gave British India independent status, the "well-meaning" British divided the country into two countries, India and Pakistan, based purely on religion.

Pakistan was divided into east and west parts by India, East Pakistan (today Bangladesh ) became an enclave.

▲The partition of India and Pakistan

This kind of border division without considering ethnicity and language has laid a "hidden mine" for conflict between India and Pakistan. War broke out one after another between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, East Pakistan and other places.

On the border between India and East Pakistan, there are still 162 "enclaves" and "anti-enclaves" with a total area of ​​about 120 square kilometers (due to changes in natural geographical conditions and man-made statistical differences, there are also 198 enclaves. ).

▲Distribution of enclaves in India and Bangladesh (red and green)

After Bangladesh became independent in 1971, the enclave problem continued to trouble the governments of India and Bangladesh. After intermittent negotiations, the two countries did not eliminate the enclave until 2015 through a territorial exchange.

India even gave up more than 20 square kilometers of territory in order to completely solve the enclave problem that has existed for nearly three centuries.

How much trouble has the enclave issue caused to the governments and people of the two countries? How was the complex enclave group on the India-Bangladesh border finally resolved?

▲The Indian residents in the enclave, walking past, the tree behind them is Bangladesh

1. The formation of misfortunes

The formation of enclaves often has its own special historical reasons, such as ethnic, religious and other issues.

As a neighboring country, India85% of the population (about 1.2 billion) now believe in Hinduism, while Bangladeshis the third largest Islamic country in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan, with 150 million Muslims (accounting for the total 90% of the population).

Bangladesh is the earliest Islamicized region in South Asia. During this process, the ruling families of Bengal continued to change, and conflicts between Hindus and Muslims escalated, eventually giving rise to complex enclave issues.

▲The enclave of the two countries

In the 7th century AD, Islam was born in the Arabian Peninsula, and spread in Asia, Europe and Africa with the footsteps of the Arab Empire army. Bangladesh has fertile soil and dense river networks. It has been an economically developed area in South Asia since ancient times.

In the 8th century AD, Arab traders brought Islam to Bengal.

Hinduism is deeply rooted in South Asia. At that time, Bengalis were devout Hindu believers. From the 8th to the 11th century, Islam spread slowly in Bangladesh, and traces of Islam were even harder to find in the hinterland of South Asia.

However, as Islam took root in Central Asia, starting from the 12th century, multiple Islamic regimes invaded the Indian peninsula from Afghanistan and other places.

▲The spread of Islam

At the end of the 12th century, Afghans who believed in Islam invaded North India, and Bengal was also conquered in 1202. A part of the Afghan military aristocrats established their own rule and established the Delhi Sultanate .

In order to stabilize its rule, the Delhi Sultanate actively promoted Islam. Densely populated Bengal is a key area for religious assimilation, with a large number of mosques and Islamic schools established.

▲Delhi Sultanate

By the 15th century, the Delhi Sultanate gradually declined. At this time, East Bengal was basically Islamic; in West Bengal, which was slightly less developed, Muslims accounted for nearly half.

At the end of the 16th century, the Mughals who came from Central Asia and believed in Islam became the new overlords of North India. The prosperous Bengal naturally attracted the attention of the Mughals. From 1576, the Mughals began to invade Bengal. In 1666 AD, the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal.

▲The Mughals at the end of the 16th century

The northern part of the Indian subcontinent seemed to be under the rule of the Mughal Empire , but the Mughal rulers believed in Islam, which was incompatible with the Hindu beliefs of the Indian subcontinent. Even if they implemented a policy of religious tolerance, the Mughal monarchs still needed to rely on a large number of Hindu princes in North India to help them maintain their rule.

The loyalty of the princely states to the empire was based on the military strength of the Mughal Empire. The Mughal monarch also granted certain political rights to the princely states accordingly. Against this background, at the end of the 17th century, the enclave problem emerged.

▲Indian nobles

Kochi Bihar princely state (hereinafter referred to as Kochi ) is adjacent to northern Bengal. Although the princes of Kochi believe in Hinduism and the Bengali nobles believe in Islam, it is said that the local prince has a relationship with Bengal Rangpur. The rulers of area (bordering Kochi) had better relations.

The two often play cards together for fun. The two nobles like to make bets with the most common item in their hands - land.

In a gambling game, winning or losing is unpredictable. In successive games, the land on the border between the two sides was exchanged back and forth, forming an unstructured border pattern.

Another theory is that the Mughal Empire invaded Kochi in a big way. Kochi's army resisted desperately, forcing the Mughals to withdraw and make peace. The situation in the fighting area between the two sides was complicated. The Mughal army and the Kochi army each occupied some villages.

The two countries agreed that whichever country occupied the village during the armistice would belong to that country, thus forming a criss-crossed enclave group.

▲How the Mughal Empire

enclaves came into being is not accurately recorded in historical documents. Only local legends give us a glimpse. From this, it is not difficult to find that the emergence of enclave groups is related to the competition for the interests of local rulers. This is not uncommon in human history.

For example, the Netherlands and the Baale enclave group of Belgium (composed of 33 enclaves). In ancient times, Baale belonged to the Duke of Brabant and the Baron of Breda. Later, the two aristocratic territories were divided into the Netherlands and the Baron of Breda. Belgium, formed today's Dutch-Belgian enclave group.

▲ Bale is also the product of competition for interests

The border enclave between Bangladesh and Kochi is also an area where the forces of Islam and Hinduism intersect.

Religious conflicts and ethnic disputes have given rise to the enclave problem. India in the 17th century did not have the concept of a modern country's borders, and residents of enclaves could enter and exit the enclaves without being affected. But over the course of history, the enclave problem has become more complicated.

▲The enclave is at the forefront of religious confrontation

In the 18th century, due to years of expansionary wars and religious oppression policies, the Mughal Empire flourished and declined, and uprisings occurred all over the country. Political turmoil allowed local forces to grow. In 1717, Murshid Khan, the governor of Bengal, declared independence.

Since then, the Maratha, Oudh and other princely states have successively challenged the Mughal "regional hegemony in India". This provided an excellent opportunity for Western colonists. Colonial countries such as Britain and France expanded their territories in India and supported local princes to fight proxy wars.

While the feudal forces in India were fighting among themselves, Britain, France, Portugal, the Netherlands and other countries successively opened colonial strongholds on the coast of India and continued to expand their sphere of influence in India.

In June 1757, the British army defeated the Bengal army in the Battle of Plassey and turned the entire Bengal into a colony.The British conquered Kochi the following year and made it a puppet regime under the control of the British East India Company.

2. The hot "heritage"

The British established Calcutta in Bengal and regarded it as the center of British rule in South Asia. Based on Bengal, the British expanded aggressively in South Asia.

By the mid-19th century, about 65% of the land and 75% of the population in the South Asian subcontinent were under the direct rule of the British. The remaining areas were ruled by hundreds of princely states distributed throughout South Asia that submitted to the British.

▲British Conquest of India

Since Kochi and Bengal are under British control, the British have more important global hegemony and have no time to worry about boring local demarcation.

In 1857, a national uprising against colonial rule broke out in the Indian subcontinent. The suppression of the uprising put the British East India Company into financial difficulties. In order to meet the needs of colonial hegemony, Britain placed the Indian colonies under the jurisdiction of the government in 1858 and established British India.

The structure of British India basically continued the previous "direct government-state" coexistence model, and the enclave between Kochi and Bengal still existed.

In 1905, the British divided the vast province of Bengal into two. The British claimed the move was to "improve administrative efficiency," but locals believed it was nothing more than a divide-and-conquer trick. The east and west parts of Bangladesh are populated by Muslims and Hindus respectively. This move also paved the way for the future division of Bangladesh.

▲Divided Bengal

In the first half of the 20th century, India attracted great attention from the British as the "most precious gem" in the crown of the British Empire. As a colony, British India became a source of raw materials and a dumping ground for British goods. Hundreds of thousands of Indian soldiers fought and lost their lives for the British in both world wars.

Under the leadership of Gandhi and others, the Indian National Congress led Indians to launch an independence movement in the form of non-violent non-cooperation . Muslim politicians headed by Jinnah also joined in, and achieving national independence became the common pursuit of Hindus and Muslims. In addition, Muslims also established the All-India Muslim League to support the cause of independence.

After World War II, in the wave of national liberation, the British, whose strength was declining, announced their withdrawal from South Asia. There were conflicts between Muslims and Hindus who had joined hands to fight against the British colonists.

▲Gandhi

The British lost no time in proposing the "Mountbatten Plan". The Hindu-dominated areas in British India were merged into one country, and the Muslim-dominated areas were merged into another country. The princes and states decided their own ownership.

Most areas of British India believed in Hinduism, and the Republic of India was founded on this basis. The princely state of Kochi Behar was merged into India, and West Bengal also became a part of India because of the majority of Hindus.

The Muslim-dominated eastern Bengal formed Pakistan together with the British and Indian northwest, and the eastern part of Bengal became East Pakistan. The enclave is divided into two, of which 106 pieces (an area of ​​69.5 square kilometers) belong to India; 92 pieces (an area of ​​47.7 square kilometers) belong to Pakistan.

▲India-Pakistan partition

The partition plan of the "Mountbatten Plan" has left huge hidden dangers in India-Pakistan relations. For example, in the state of Kashmir, most local people believe in Islam and hope to join Pakistan. But the local rulers were Hindus and intended to join India.

In 1947, a war broke out between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Neither country could completely occupy Kashmir. However, since then, the two countries have had serious political and religious opposition, which has greatly affected the lives of residents in the border enclave.

▲The fight for Kashmir

Because of the tense relations between India and Pakistan, the specific border line of the enclave has never been delineated.The border defense forces of the two countries are unwilling to give up any opportunity to "show national prestige" and arrest people from the enemy country who accidentally cross the border. The complexity of the

enclave issue lies in the fact that these 198 enclaves are not simply "first-level enclaves" surrounded by the opponent's territory, but there are 28 "second-level enclaves" that are nested within enclaves (21 Guiba, 7 Guiyin), and a 650-square-meter "third-level enclave" (Guiyin). The issue of small and complex enclaves has been ignored by the governments of India and Pakistan for a long time.

▲A matryoshka-like enclave

From 1965 to 1971, two more India-Pakistan wars broke out between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The huge India gained an advantage in the war. In 1971, the third India-Pakistan war broke out. War once created an opportunity to solve the enclave problem.

East Pakistan is not geographically bordered by the main body of Pakistan, and is only classified as one country because of the common Islamic faith. The population of East Pakistan accounts for 55% of Pakistan's total population, but the local Bangladeshis have been squeezed out of the power class. The Punjabi and Sindhi people of West Pakistan have taken control of the country's military power.

▲Pakistan

The Pakistani government restricted the use of national languages ​​by Bangladeshis and forced the implementation of Urdu used in West Pakistan in East Pakistan. An independence movement broke out in East Pakistan.

In November 1971, a border conflict broke out between India and Pakistan. The Indian army immediately launched a large-scale attack on East Pakistan to support local independent armed forces.

East Pakistan is separated from mainland Pakistan by India, and the main force of the Pakistani army cannot rescue. With the support of India, East Pakistan gained independence in 1971 and established Bangladesh.

▲Bangladeshis celebrating independence

Bangladesh inherited a 4,000-kilometer border from the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, of which 3,000 kilometers had been demarcated with India during Pakistan's rule. There are 15 disputed locations in the remaining 1,000 kilometers, including complex enclaves.

In 1974, the first round of boundary negotiations between India and Bangladesh ended. Under the agreement, India and Bangladesh will exchange most of their enclaves. At the same time, India provides Bangladesh with a 186-meter-long and 85-meter-wide land corridor to connect two larger Bangladeshi enclaves in India - Hilli and Dhagram. (Dahagram). The price is that Bangladesh gives India a 17% tariff preference, while India can maintain a 25% tariff on Bangladesh.

▲Dimbika Corridor

The Bangladesh Parliament quickly approved the agreement, but the Indian Congress refused to approve it on the grounds that it was not in India's interests. It was not until 1982 that the corridor, known as Dimbika, was officially leased to Bangladesh, but the enclave exchange went nowhere.

In the 1980s, conflicts between India and Bangladesh became prominent over the distribution of water resources in the Ganges River and maritime demarcation. Coupled with the serious religious antagonism between the two countries, India-Bangladesh relations have become cold, and the enclave issue has once again reached a dead end.

▲Dimbika Corridor

3. Home and country are most important

After the end of the Cold War, the global structure entered a period of adjustment, and India and Bangladesh also actively adjusted their diplomatic strategies. In 1996, Hasina was elected Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Hasina's father was one of the leaders of Bangladesh's independence and had received funding from India. Hasina actively carried out diplomacy with India after coming to power.

Although the political and economic relations between India and Bangladesh have recovered, it still cannot conceal the huge troubles caused by the enclave issue to both countries.

Between 1996 and 2001, India and Bangladesh had 186 conflicts in the enclave, killing a total of 122 Bangladeshi citizens and soldiers, and there were also many casualties on the Indian side.

▲The reason for the conflict in the complex enclave

was that the residents of the enclave left the enclave for daily needs, but the Indian and Bangladeshi border guards believed that they had illegally crossed the border and shot them.

On April 16, 2001, Bangladesh's paramilitary force, the Bangladesh Rifles, occupied a disputed enclave and demolished the local Indian outpost. Two days later, the Indians launched a counterattack and raided Boraibari, a Bangladeshi enclave in India. As a result, the Indian army was ambushed by the Bangladesh Rifles, and 16 Indian soldiers died.

This is the first enclave conflict between India and Bangladesh in the 21st century, and it is also the most serious enclave conflict since Bangladesh's independence. The diplomatic war between the two countries over the enclave conflict remains superficial, but the enclave issue has caused endless harm to local residents. As of 2010, approximately 30,000 Indian residents and 25,000 Bangladeshi residents lived in the enclave.

▲The national border passes between the two people

For the residents of the enclave, the enclave is like a besieged city. It is isolated from the world and difficult to escape. Enclave residents cannot even participate in voting, which is a disguised deprivation of some citizenship rights. For them, the existence of "country" is almost invisible.

Both the governments of India and Bangladesh have chosen to ignore the enclaves. Water, electricity, and communication networks are often built to the edge of the enclave and then come to an abrupt end.

Dead ends abound in enclaves, and public health care and education cannot benefit the people in enclaves at all. Locals can only use fake documents to go to school or find work in their own country.

▲Enclave children who can only light candles to study

When relations between India and Bangladesh were good, free circulation of people and goods could still be achieved inside and outside the enclave. Once the relationship between the two countries turned cold, a large number of border walls and checkpoints surrounded the enclave like iron barrels, and the residents of the enclave had to spend a few dollars to bribe the border forces in order to pass.

This amount of money may be several days’ income for the residents of the enclave. But even so, they may never come back.

▲Border Guard

A 2010 statistics showed that 75% of the residents of the Bangladesh enclave (about 19,000 people) had been arrested by the Indian border defense department for " illegal entry ". Being arrested has even become a daily routine for residents of the enclave, and they only travel to shop, fetch water, and farm.

The special environment of living isolated from the locals for generations, intermarriage within a fixed range, and weakening the identification of the enclave residents with the country.

The existence of the enclave has always left weak links in the border management between India and Bangladesh. As a neighboring country, India, with better economic conditions, has become attractive to Bangladeshi immigrants. About 8 million Bangladeshis live illegally in India. Except for large cities such as Kolkata in neighboring Bangladesh, about 5 million of them have moved to eastern India.

▲Eastern Bangladesh borders six northeastern states of India

Most of the residents of the six eastern states of India are yellow people, and their language and culture are different from the main ethnic groups in India.

There are already independent armed forces such as Assam and Manipur in the local area. The immigration of Bangladeshi immigrants who believe in Islam makes the locals feel that their resources are being squeezed, intensifying the confrontation with the Indian government. Independent militants also took advantage of loopholes in border control to sneak into Bangladesh to avoid attacks by the Indian military.

In 2011, India resumed border negotiations with Bangladesh amid the deteriorating security situation and protests from people in the northeastern states. In 2014, Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to win the election. India's foreign policy underwent adjustments and began to emphasize "neighborhood priority."

In 2015, the Indian Congress finally passed the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement that had been pending for 41 years. India handed over 111 enclaves of about 70 square kilometers to Bangladesh in exchange for 52 enclaves of 48 square kilometers. In order to solve the enclave problem, India has made sacrifices in its interests.

India made concessions on the enclave issue in exchange for Bangladesh's support in combating separatist forces in eastern India.

▲India-Bangladesh leaders met

After the exchange of enclaves, India and Bangladesh plan to spend US$150 million and US$23 million respectively to promote infrastructure construction in the enclaves. Under the agreement between the two countries, residents of the enclave are free to choose their nationality.

What India didn’t expect was that only 3% of the original Indian enclave residents (about 1,000 people) chose to retain Indian citizenship, and the rest all joined the economically backward Bangladeshi citizenship.

The fundamental reason is that these residents do not want to leave their homes where they have lived for generations. The isolation from mainstream society has given enclave residents a deeper understanding of their families. In their eyes, home is more important than country.

▲ Enclave residents who became Bangladeshi citizens

Enclave residents who became Indian citizens also find it difficult to integrate into Indian society. Due to the previous conditions in the enclaves, these residents have no skills or education and can only make a living by doing odd jobs.

As of 2020, the infrastructure promised by the Indian government remains unfulfilled. Most of the enclave residents moved to mainland India and lived in centralized settlements arranged by the government.

The enclave exchange failed to completely change the living conditions of local residents, but the exchange of hundreds of enclaves is rare in the world. This move by India and Bangladesh has indeed solved the management problems of the enclaves and achieved the expected goals to a certain extent. This attempt at territorial exchange provides a reference for other countries’ enclave territorial management.

▲ Enclave residents working in sawmills

Long-time author | Biluo Qingyao

Senior history enthusiast

Editor in charge | Thomas

London School of Economics graduate | Global Intelligence Editor-in-Chief